How to Influence People?2- HOW TO AVOID MAKING ENEMIES

 How to Influence People?2- HOW TO AVOID MAKING ENEMIES

When Theodore Roosevelt was in the White House, he confessed that if he could be right 75 per cent of the time, he would reach the highest measure of his expectation.

   If that was the highest rating that one of the most distinguished men of the 20th century could hope to obtain, what about you and me?

   If you can be sure of being right only 55 per cent of the time, you can go down to Wall Street and make a million dollars a day. If you can't be sure of being right even 55 per cent of the time, why should you tell other people they are wrong?

   You can tell people they are wrong by a look or an intonation or a gesture just as eloquently as you an in words -- and if you tell them they are wrong, do you make them want to agree with you? Never! For you have struck a direct blow at hteir intelligence, judgement, pride and self-respect. That will make them want to strike back But it will never make them want to change there minds. You may then hurl at item all the logic of a Plato or an Immanuel Kant, but you will not alter their opinions, for you have hurt their feelings.

   Never begin by announcing: 'I am going to prove so-and-so to you.' That's bad. That's tantamount to saying: 'I' m smarter than you are. I'm going to tell you a thing or two and make you change your mind.'

   That is a challenge. It arouses opposition and makes the listener want to battle with you before you even start.

   It is difficult, under even the most benign conditions, to change people's minds. So why make it harder? Why handicap yourself?

   If you are going to prove anything, don't let anybody know it. Do it so subtly, so adroitly, that no one will feel that you are doing it. This was expressed succinctly by Alexander Pope:

   Men must be taught as if you taught them not, and things unknown proposed as things forgot.

Over 300 years ago Galilie said:

    You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him to find it within himself.

As Lord Chesterfield said to his son:

      Be wiser than other people if you can; but do not tell them so.

Socrates said repeatedly to is followers in Athens:

     One thing only I know, and that is that I know nothing.

Well, I can't hope to be any smarter than Socrates, so I have quit telling people they are wrong. And I find that it pays.

   If a person makes a statement that you think is wrong-- yes, even that you know is wrong-- isn't it better to begin by saying: 'Well, now, look. I thought otherwise but I may be wrong. I frequently am. And if I am wrong, I want to be put right. Let's examine the facts.'

   There's magic, positive magic, in such phrases as: "I may be wrong, I frequently am. Let's examine the facts.'

   Nobody in the heavens above or on the earth beneath or in the waters under the earth will ever object to your saying: 'I may be wrong. Let's examine the facts.'

   One of our class members who used this approach in dealing with customers was Harold Reinke, a Dodge dealer in Billing, Montana. He reported that because of the pressures of the automobile business, he was often hard-boiled and callous when dealing with customers' complaints. This caused flared tempers, loss of business and general unpleasantness.

   He told his class: 'Recognising that this was getting me nowhere fast, I tried a new tack. I would say something like this: "Our dealership has made so may have erred in your case. Tell me about it."

   'This approach becomes quite disarming, and by the time the customer releases his feelings, he is usually much more reasonable when it comes to settling the matter. In fact, several customers have  thanked me for having such an understanding attitude. And two of them have even brought in friends to buy new cars. In this highly competitive market, we need more of this type of customer, and I believe that showing respect for all customers' opinions and treating them diplomatically and courteously will help beat the competition.'

   You will never get into trouble by admitting that you may be wrong. That will stop all argument and inspire your opponent to be just as fair and open and broad-minded as you are. It will make him want to admit that he, too, may be wrong.

   If you know positively that a person is wrong, and you bluntly tell him or her so, what happens? Let me illustrate. Mr S -, a young New York attorney, once argued a rather important case before the United States Supreme Court (Lustgarten v. Fleet Corporation 280 U.S. 320). The case involved a considerable sum of money and an important question of law. During the argument, one of the Supreme Court justices said to him: 'The statute of limitations in admiralty law is six years, is it not?'

   Mr S-- stooped, stated at the Justice for a moment, and then said bluntly: 'Your Honour, here is no statute of limitations in admiralty.'

   'A hush fell on the court,' said Mr s-as he related his experience to one of hte author's classes, 'and the temperature in the room seemed to drop to zero. I was right. Justice- was wrong. And I had told him so. But did that make him friendly? No. I still believe that I had the law on my side. And I knew that I spoke better than I ever spoke before. But I didn't persuade. I made the enormous blunder of telling a very leaned and famous man that he was wrong.'

   Few people are logical. Most of us are prejudiced and biased. Most of us are blighted with preconceived notions, with jealousy, suspicion, fear, envy and pride. And most citizens don't want to change their minds about their religion or their haircut or communism or their favourite movie star. So, if you are inclined to tell people they are wrong, please read the following paragraph every morning before breakfast. It is from james Harvey Robinson's enlightening book The mind in the Making.

We sometimes find ourselves changing our minds without any resistance find ourselves changing our minds without any resistance or heavy emotion, but if we are told we are wrong, we resent the imputation and harden our hearts. We are incredibly headless in the formation of our beliefs, but find ourselves filled with an illicit passion for them when anyone proposes to rob us of hater companionship. It is obviously not the ideas themselves that are dear to us, but our Boer self-esteem which is threatened... the little word 'my' dinner, 'my' dog, and 'my' house, or 'my' father, 'my' country, and 'my' God. We not only resent the imputation that our watch is wrong, or our car shabby, but that our conception of hte canals of Mars, of the pronunciation of 'Epictetus', of the medicinal value of slicing, or of the date of Sargon I is subject to revision. We like ot continue to believe what we have been accustomed to accept as true, and the resentment aroused when doubt is cast upon any of our assumptions leads us to seek every manner of excuse for clinging ot it. The result is that most of our so-called reasoning consists in finding arguments for going on believing as we already do.

   I once employed an interior decorator to make some draperies for my home. When the bill arrived, I was dismayed.

   A few days later, a friend dropped in advance looked at the draperies. The price was mentioned, and she exclaimed with a note of triumph: 'What? That's awful. I am afraid he put one over on you.'

   True? Yes, she had told hte truth, but few people like to listen ot truths that reflect on their judgement. So, being human, I tried to defend myself. I pointed out that the best is eventually the cheapest, that one  can't expect to get quality and artistic taste at bargain-basement prices, and so on and on.

   The next day another friend dropped in, admired the draperies, bubbled over with enthusiasm and expressed a wish that she could afford such exquisite creations for her home. My reaction was totally different. 'Well, to tell the truth,' I said, 'I can't afford them myself. I paid too much. I'm sorry I ordered them.'

   When we are wrong, we may admit it to ourselves. And if we are handled gently and tactfully, we may admit it to others and even take pride in our frankness and broad-mindedness. But not if someone else is trying to ram the unpalatable fact down our oesophagus.

   Horace Greeley, the most famous editor in America during the time of the Civil War, disagreed violently with Lincoln's policies. He believed that he could drive Lincoln into agreeing with him by a campaign of argument, ridicule and abuse. He waged this bitter campaign month after month, year after year. In fact, he wrote brutal, bitter, sarcastic and personal attack on President Lincoln the night Booth shot him.

   But did all this bitterness make Lincoln agree with Greeley? Not at all. Ridicule and abuse never do.

   If you want some excellent suggestions about dealing with people and managing yourself and improving your personality, read Benjamin Franklin's autobiography- one of the most fascinating life stories ever written, one of the classics of American literature. Ben Franklin tells how he conquered the iniquitous habit of argument and transformed himself intone of the most able, suave and diplomatic men in American history.

  One day, when Ben Franklin was a blundering youth, an old Quaker friend took him aside and lashed him with a few stinging truths, something like this:

   Ben, you are impossible. Your opinions have a slap in them for everyone who differs with you. They have become so offencive that nobody cares for them. Your friends find they enjoy themselves better when you are not around. You know so much that no man can tell you anything. Indeed, no man is going to try, for the effort would lead only ot discomfort and hard work. So you are not likely ever to know any more than you do now, which is very little.

  Once of hte finest things I know about Ben Franklin is the way he accepted that smarting rebuke. He was big enough and wise enough to realise that it was true, to sense that he was headed for failure and social disaster. So he made a right-about-face. He began immediately to change his insolent, opinionated ways.

   'I made it a rule,' said Franklin, 'to forbear all direct contradiction ot hte sentiment of others, and all positive assertion of my own. I even forbade myself the use of every word or expression in the language that imported a fixed opinion, such as "certainly," "undoubtedly," etc., and I adopted, instead of them, "I conceive," "I apprehend," or "I imagine" a  thing to be so or so, or "it so appears to me at present.: When another asserted something that I thought an error, I denied myself the pleasure of contradiction him abruptly, and of showing immediately some absurdity in  his proposition: and in answering I began by observing that in certain cases or circumstances his opinion would be right, but in the present case there appeared or seemed to me some difference, etc. I soon found the advantage of this change in my manner; the conversations I engaged in went on more pleasantly. The modest way in which I proposed my opinions procured them a readier reception and less contradiction; I had less17